I've often said you can see Langley from a distance: it's the distinctive red glow off our most politically interested residents' necks.

But while the federal red continues to glow as brightly as ever, a tinge of provincial pink has been starting to shade the horizon over the past few years.

The socialists are coming!

The socialists are coming!

Well, actually, they're here.

While it may be hard to believe, Langley

has been represented - albeit in a far, distant past - by New Democrats.

At one point, Langley was represented from the left - both provincially and federally - by the husband-and-wife team of Barry and Camille Mather.

Camille represented Langley provincially through the NDP's forerunner, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), in the early 1960s, and Barry flew a newly minted NDP flag over Langley's federal landscape shortly after. (Camille failed to win re-election as an official NDP candidate.)

Indeed, Camille was not our first historical foray into the dark realm of socialist representation. In the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Len Shepherd held sway in the provincial legislature seat normally ruled by Langley-style right-of-centre sensibilities.

But lest you feel sullied by Langley's burial in a leftist past, rest assured that it was not Langley voters who held the shovel.

In both provincial cases, Langley was actually the eastern-most part of the geographically extensive Delta Riding. And an examination of poll-by-poll results shows that Camille and Len won their seats despite Langley voters, and not with this area's majority blessing.

Likewise federally, where Barry's sphere of influence, and later another New Democrat, Mark Rose's, was actually centred far outside of Langley, as parts of widespread ridings.

Both the federal and provincial ridings were realigned after the Mathers, and if anything, the red glow deepened over Langley's skies.

Regardless of outside influences which may have created appearances to the contrary, a solid majority of Langley voters has always held unbendingly true to the philosophies of the political right wing.

As for fear of a leftist future wherein Langley's red-glowing residents are forced to toil under the yoke of New Democrat representation inside the seemingly inevitable NDP provincial government expected to rise out of the ChristyLib ashes in May, rest easy.

B.C. may fall to Dix and his crew, but if history truly is a roadmap to the future, don't expect Langley to capitulate to Wacky Bennett's fabled Socialist Hordes.

Ol' Wacky famously cautioned against the evils of socialism in a televised message on the eve of the 1972 provincial election.

B.C. responded by turfing his Social Credit right-wing coalition in favour of Davey Barrett and his NDP-pink undies.

But Langley gripped the right with both hands and held on, bucking the pinko tide by promoting Langley City councillor and eventually immensely powerful Socred cabinet minister Bob (later "Broadway Bob" in his downhill political path) McClelland.

When the Socreds were swept into oblivion by the Harcourt Horde in 1991, Langley hung a hard right into the theretofore nonexistent provincial Liberal fold.

And Langley's always-present socialists, as always, placed second.

Langley's demographic has certainly been changing, inching to the left. But our pink star is still below the horizon. If May's election broom does sweep through Langley, expect the Socialist Horde to register a stronger-than-ever finish here - in second place behind a new BC Conservative right-wing coalition.

editor@langleyadvance.com